Dark Paradise
by MsAnimanga
Summary: AU. Rachel attempts to cope with Quinn's death. Warning: Major character death, dark themes. This is not a one shot. M rating not for sexual content, at the moment.
1. Carbon Monoxide

_Every time I close my eyes_

_It's like a dark paradise._

_Nothing compares to you_

_I'm scared that you_

_Won't be waiting on the other side_

The sun is relentless. It just does not seem to understand.

That giant star that she once was, the heat and shine that it once radiated, is a stark contrast to the fallen star standing on wilting grass.

Her black dress is absorbing the heat, and it's stifling. She resists the urge to stamp her foot, to complain about the heat, to whine.

At least she can feel that heat.

With that thought, Rachel's tears begin once again. She is brought back to reality, to the harsh reality of her surroundings.

A sea of black fabric and blank stares litters the lawn. A priest is reading a few verses from a worn Bible.

Judy Fabray is weeping uncontrollably.

Something in Rachel shifts, and she moves forward without a second thought. Her arms are wrapped around the woman in a flash, and she squeezes with whatever little strength she has left.

Judy squeezes back.

* * *

><p>Rachel stands alone before the carved marble, fingers tracing over the letters.<p>

Lucy Quinn Fabray

A sob wracks her body, and she kneels before she loses her nerve.

She places a single gardenia, wrapped in a green ribbon, on the freshly turned soil.

With one last graze of her fingers over the swirled colors of the marble, she makes her decision.

"I'm on my way to you."

* * *

><p>Her fathers are out, somewhere across town.<p>

She drove herself home, despite the concern in her daddy's voice and his insistence that it wasn't safe.

She needed time alone, she had told him, and that look in her eye worried him, but it convinced him all the same.

She had driven slowly, her windows rolled down to let in the stiff hot air, the ocassional breeze a relief from the stifling heat.

A bath would be nice. A bath, and some music, and a few hours on her bed staring at her phone and the text messages Quinn had sent her those few days ago.

_On my way._

Rachel pulled into the garage, quickly pressing the garage door remote, the door closing slowly as her playlist switched to another song.

She couldn't bring herself to move.

The words wafted through the speakers, and the frail girl leaned her forehead against the steering wheel as another sob shook her.

Quinn is gone. All she has to remember her by are a few text messages and an aching feeling in her chest.

It is all so surreal. A few days ago, she was frantically texting the girl before her wedding.

The message before that fateful one had sparked something within her once again.

_I can't do this. I'm still coming, but I can't let it happen. _

Rachel should have been outraged that Quinn refused to support the wedding. She should have been hurt that Quinn had changed her mind once again.

She had only felt a flicker of hope, however, and when her phone vibrated with that final message, she postponed things that much longer in spite of Finn's protests. That text message had filled her with something like longing and hope, though she ignored the implications.

When she got the phone call, all she felt was pain, a tangible pain in her chest that settled and suffocated her with every passing moment of every passing day.

Crying her eyes out in her car and coming to terms with what that text message meant- and what it meant when she had called off the engagement-should dissipate the crushing feeling in her chest.

Instead, the pressure is increasing, and an eerie nausuea is settling over her.

Something at the edge of her mind is telling her that something is wrong, that this is more than just her emotional pain and mourning.

Rachel is overwhelmed with grief and loss, however, and she merely relents when her grip on the steering wheel loosens.

She blinks hazily and swallows thickly, wondering why the music seems so far away.

It is not until she hears her daddy's frightened voice that she realizes that she had been sitting in that car for far too long.

Something washes over her and she hears an "Oh, Rachel" and she wonders fleetingly if this is how she meant to fulfill her promise, before everything goes black.

_And all you can hear is the sound of your own heart_  
><em>And all you can feel is your lungs flood and the blood course<em>  
><em>But oh I can see five hundred years dead set ahead of me<em>  
><em>Five hundred behind<em>  
><em>A thousand years in perfect symmetry<em>

Is this what she had meant?

I'm on my way to you.


	2. Jigsaw

_Going to the chapel, baby…_

The song is horrendous.

For some reason, she switches the song immediately every time it plays.

Though she's not sure if that happens often.

She hasn't heard it in what seems like forever, she can't even remember why it's in her iPod in the first place.

She can't exactly add more music to the thing. She can't remember how to add music to it, or remove music, or where it came from in the first place.

The tension in her shoulders is gone when the next song begins, and she hums along as the words wash over her.

_You make me want to be a human again_  
><em>Can I be your only human again<em>  
><em>You bring me back<em>  
><em>You bring me back in pieces in the-<em>

Her humming stops abruptly when she spots a figure on the side of the road.

It's not uncommon for there to be wanderers in the area, but this one looks new.

She is wearing a dress that looks entirely too formal for a walk through the deserted town, and the heels in her hand are certainly out of place.

Something makes her pull off to the side of the road, and she idles beside the girl, lowering the volume on the radio.

"Are you lost?" The brunette's head whips to find the source of the voice and, wow, she must really be new because she looks like she hasn't seen another human being for quite some time.

"I…Quinn?"

She hits the brakes just as the girl stops walking, dropping her heels and just gaping at her.

"How do you know my name….?" Quinn has been here for an eternity, so long that she has almost forgotten her own name several times, and she has certainly not met anyone here yet that knew her from before.

Perhaps she had, but she hadn't recognized them, given the amount of time that she had been here.

The brunette looks at the car, and there are suddenly tears in her eyes, and for some reason Quinn's heart just aches.

She scrambles out of the beat up red VW quickly, reaching for the girl's shoes that had clattered to the asphalt, because she's not sure what else to do.

"Want a ride?" She asks, hesitantly gesturing toward the car.

The small girl is crushing her in a hug seconds later, and she just pats her back awkwardly with her free hand.

"Yes, please." The brunette whispers against her collarbone, and Quinn can't help but feel some vague sense of familiarity at the surprising hug.

The shorter girl wipes the tears from her cheeks before looking up at her with an indistinguishable look in her eye.

After a few beats of awkward staring, the girl is moving toward her car, and Quinn takes that as the sign that they're ready to go.

* * *

><p>They are in the car and on the road without much incident, after the girl had insisted that they buckle themselves in first. Quinn hadn't had the heart to protest.<p>

"I'm dead, aren't I?" The words are whispered and somewhat worried, but Quinn can sense the finality in them.

"Something like that." Her fingers nervously drum against the steering wheel, and she keeps her eyes on the road despite the lack of cars or stop signs or anything, really.

"You don't remember me, do you?" Quinn's brow furrows, and she wonders fleetingly if she should. She wracks her brain for something, something more than the odd flashes of familiarity that she feels, but comes up empty.

"No…" She answers, somewhat guiltily, before turning into town.

"Rachel. My name is Rachel." The girl's voice is suddenly very small, and she looks through the window as they near the parking garage.

"What is this place?" Her eyes are darting between Quinn and her surroundings, the question hanging between them in the air.

"My apartment building." The blonde is about to exit the car when Rachel shakes her head quickly.

"No, I meant…this place." She makes some wide gesture, and Quinn realizes that she must not understand.

"It's sort of like…like a limbo." She licks her lips, unsure of how to explain it when she's not quite sure what it is herself.

"For some reason, we're stuck here. A lot of people chalk it up to unfinished business. Some are here for other reasons, most of them remember when they first arrive." She looks at the brunette briefly before shrugging a shoulder.

"I don't really remember…" Quinn trails off as she finally reaches for her car door and exits the vehicle.

The doors slam closed and the brunette inexplicably follows her to the building without question.

They're in a rickety elevator and some song is on and they're silent until Rachel is clearing her throat and speaking just as the doors open to the third floor of the building.

"I didn't mean to kill myself."


	3. Accidental Death

Rachel should be afraid.

She should certainly not be standing in a calmly in a quiet elevator with some version of Quinn that does not remember her.

Reality slipped from her fingers sometime after the girl that she longed to befriend was crushed by a reckless truck, however, so she follows Quinn without question once the elevator doors slide open.

They walk wordlessly toward what Rachel assumes is Quinn's apartment, though she opens the door without a key – evidently breaking in to people's apartments isn't common here.

Rachel wonders briefly how they keep track of who lives where; there are no numbers on the apartments.

"It still counts." Quinn's voice suddenly cuts through the silence, followed by a series of noises from the kitchen. Rachel hadn't noticed that she was the only one still in the living area.

She waits for further explanation, and follows her voice before speaking again.

"What still counts?" She hasn't forgotten the words she blurted out in the elevator, but presses for clarification nonetheless.

"Your death still counts, even if was an accident." She answers matter-of-factly and shrugs, pulling a plastic container from the refrigerator.

"Well, clearly, if you're here…" Rachel mumbles under her breath, the past few days flashing in her mind.

Quinn tenses for a moment, her eyes flashing with something before it passes altogether. This inquisitive girl in her apartment clearly thinks that she knows something about Quinn's death, but she isn't sure yet if she wants to ask.

"Are you hungry? It's not lunch time yet, but I have some fruit salad." She hands the container and a fork to the new girl before waltzing back into the living room, leaving Rachel to trail behind her.

She merely stands dazedly on the tacky linoleum floor of the kitchen for a few beats. Quinn takes a seat on the dilapidated couch in the living room, flipping through several snowy channels on her beat-up television before settling on a familiar movie she can't recall the name of.

Apparently, they have cable in the afterlife – or limbo, or whatever this place is - and it's common to invite strangers that somehow know your name into your apartment and offer them your fruit salad.

Rachel has the urge to scold Quinn for being so trusting. She could easily have been some strange serial killer – though she's not sure that people can die here. Would it matter?

"Are you going to sit down?"

Limbo Quinn is also about as blunt as normal Quinn.

Rachel moves hesitantly across the room and sits at the far end of the couch, glancing at Quinn and then around the room.

There are quite a few books lining the book shelf in the corner, and several empty picture frames on the walls .The furniture all looks somewhat old, and Rachel's brow creases as she thinks back to what got her here.

Just this morning, she had attended Quinn's funeral…though it looks as though the blonde has been in this apartment for quite some time. She appears to be comfortable here, and it gives Rachel an odd feeling akin to de ja vu.

"How long have you been here?" She mumbles, glancing warily at the empty picture frames again.

"I don't remember. Max explained how things work here and said that this place was empty." She shrugs, not bothering to ask if Rachel was referring to the apartment or the realm itself. That should be answer enough for both, for now.

Rachel fights the urge to gape at her, opting to chew on a chunk of pineapple from the plastic container instead.

Limbo has bland pineapple, she notes absentmindedly, and that is enough to make her pout before tossing the fork onto the coffee table.

"How can you be so nonchalant about this? You're – you're dead, and you don't remember me, and that pineapple tastes like cardboard, and…." Her eyes sting suddenly, and the gravity of the situation seems to settle over her, making her chest and throat tight. She can't feel any tears, though, and that only further frustrates her.

"How can you just sit there? We need to fix this, there has to be something we can do."

Quinn's mouth twitches, the closest she's been to a smile in quite some time. She has a feeling that, if she really did know this girl sometime in some other place, she's experienced this end of an outburst from her before.

"Calm down. Maybe there is something…." She starts, a contemplative look passing over her face, "I've been waiting." She clicks off the television then, looking at Rachel expectantly.

"You've been waiting. For what?"

She watches as Quinn stands and half-heartedly shrugs one shoulder.

"I wasn't sure at first, but I think I'm done waiting." Quinn disappears through a hallway, into her bedroom.

Baffled by her behavior, she follows Quinn, ignoring the surreal feeling of being in the other girl's bedroom – though it is a far cry from the one she has in the real world. She can only vaguely remember the room, this one is decidedly darker, and eerily unkempt.

Rachel's observation of the room is cut short when she is handed a duffel bag. A few items are packed there already, and Quinn adds things to the bag wordlessly, humming to herself as she does so.

"What are you doing?"

Quinn continues tossing things into the bag before rifling through a drawer and filling a tan knapsack.

"I'm packing, obviously. We're going on a road trip." She continues shuffling about, ignoring the sudden thud as Rachel drops the duffel. The smaller girl plops herself onto the bed, dropping her head into her hands and rambling through her fingers.

"We're dead…we're both dead, she can't remember how she got here, and she wants to go on a road trip?" Rachel speaks to herself, before laughing dryly and addressing the other girl. "Head trauma must carry on into the afterlife, because you're –"

"Stop." Rachel's outburst is cut off by a pale hand over her mouth, and she glares as soon as the shock passes. Quinn's hand drops quickly back to her side.

"I don't know anything about head trauma, okay? You start to forget things when you get here." Quinn explains, shouldering the knapsack and duffel and gesturing for the brunette to follow her.

"They say that once you forget it all, you're stuck here for good. You remember stuff, though…" She trails off, plucking a few books from her shelves before moving to collect things from the kitchen.

"This is not happening." Rachel's sudden change in tone draws Quinn's head out to peek over the refrigerator door.

"It's just a dream…another nightmare." The determined girl is talking to herself now, rubbing her temples as though it will snap her out of something. "You've had a lot of nightmares since the accident….this isn't quite a nightmare though…she's fine. She's alive." Rachel passes her conversation with herself to glance at Quinn.

"What?" The crazy girl on her couch is a bit unnerving, but Quinn can't bring herself to ask her to leave. She has been waiting for something for what seems like ages, and for some reason, the sudden appearance of this Rachel girl makes her think that she's done waiting.

"I'm not sure that I want to wake up." The matter-of-fact tone Rachel has slipped into might have been more irritating if her voice hadn't just trembled slightly.

The front door swings open, and Quinn stands in the doorway with a hint of a smirk on her lips.

"If it is a dream, why not just come along? Road trips can be nice."

The comment is meant to be light, but her smile dims slightly. Quinn often finds herself driving aimlessly for hours before realizing that she has no particular destination – it isn't difficult to just leave here. Obligations rarely exist. Quinn finally feels that she has a reason to leave, though.

"Right…why not. A road trip with the dream version of Quinn Fabray should be interesting." She throws her hands in the air dramatically, defeated.

Quinn somehow recognizes that gesture, but she pushes that thought away and returns to the elevator, saying nothing when Rachel finally stands beside her.

As the doors slide open once again and they make their way to the car, Quinn replays the other girl's words in her mind.

When they're seated, duffel and knapsack in the backseat, Quinn smirks as she starts the car.

"Quinn Fabray…" She tests the name, ignoring the bittersweet feeling that edges along her consciousness. Like a memory, but not quite.

"So, if I'm Quinn Fabray, who are you? Rachel…?" The question hangs in the air as the beat up red buggy pulls from the parking lot and rolls into the street.

"Berry. Rachel Berry."

That name feels familiar on Quinn's tongue, too, and she murmurs it to herself. She wonders if she really knew this Berry girl in another time, or if she's slowly slipping into hallucinations.

It happens here, sometimes.

As the city disappears behind them, Quinn decides that she wants to remember. If there's any chance of getting away, getting back to a place where she had a name and maybe even a friend, she wants to chase it.


End file.
